We get occasional calls from Mac-based corporate creative teams, asking about strange files their Windows-based co-workers are seeing on shared file servers. The files have familiar names, but all start with a “._” prefix.
Here is the explanation of where those oddly named files come from, and why they are important to the Mac-based creative team.
Microsoft Messenger 6 for Macintosh was released in September. The new version is a Universal application built to run on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macs, and brings a number of new features, including spellchecking, improved corporate server compatibility, and the ability to communicate with friends on the Yahoo! chat network.
There is one security feature we’ve been hearing complaints about: Messenger 6 now begins every IM session with a stern (and longwinded) warning:
Warning text: “Never give out your password or credit card number in an instant message conversation. To help prevent infection by a computer virus or worm, never accept or open any file or link in an instant message until you verify its authenticity with the sender.”
There’s no checkbox or preference to turn off the persistent warning, but if you’re willing to pry into Messenger’s application structure there’s a hack to make it go away for good.
Here is a tip for creative teams who are experiencing a lot of “unexpectedly quit” crashes when opening files from a network server in Adobe Creative Suite 2 applications.
It appears, under certain conditions, the new “Use Adobe Dialog” option introduced in CS2 can prevent crashes in InDesign and Illustrator while accessing documents over a network.
This week’s tech tip is a simple PDF checklist we’ve been using at Creativetechs for several years now. The next time you have someone work on your computer, print out this checklist and keep it handy. Before you let your tech leave, go through this with them to make sure everything important is still working properly.
Mac OS X Post Tune-Up Checklist (PDF)
We developed this checklist years ago to help ourselves avoid missing important details while working on our clients computers. Based on the positive feedback from last month’s Mac Maintenance Checklist, we’ve decided that the last week of each month we’ll feature a form, checklist, or other tool that designers can use to get the most out of their existing computer tech support.
Last month one of our clients, a prominent Seattle photographer, lost her laptop while flying home from an assignment. Her dilemma reminded us of a few software packages we’ve heard of that attempt to help reunite stolen computers with their rightful owner.
When a stolen computer is connected to the Internet (using dial-up, WiFi, Ethernet, etc), these utilities attempt to send network information back to a central server. This information can be used to track down which ISP is used for Internet access, and helps law enforcement track down the stolen devices.
